Construction of the Sh1.3 trillion affordable houses by government starts this December.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Sh1.3 trillion
affordable housing programme by the government will be held on December 11 at
Parklands, Nairobi.
The 500,000 units, to be built within the next 4 years, will
be in three categories of houses that will be available to Kenyans depending on
the level of income: social, low-cost and mortgage gap.
The social houses will be for people earning up to Sh. 14,999,
low-cost (Sh. 15,000-49,999) and mortgage gap (Sh. 50,000-99,999).
Housing Principal Secretary Charles Mwaura told a
parliamentary committee that the one-bedroom houses under the social housing
programme will cost Sh. 600,000, with those buying them expected to pay Sh. 2,500
per month for 25 years.
Under the same house category, a two-bedroom house will cost
Sh. 1 million, for Sh. 4,500 per month, while a three-bedroom house will go for
Sh. 1.4 million, for Sh. 6,500 per month.
The houses will be located in all the 47 counties and will
be constructed on both national and county government land.
(Related story: Kiambu to build 7,000 housing units to replace old JAMOFASTA houses.)
Mwaura said that the national government will have a memorandum of understanding with county governments for delivery of 2,000 housing units per year.
Under the MoU, county governments will provide land while
the national government will provide finances and capacity building.
The houses will be awarded through an affordable housing
portal using a free and transparent system.
Members of the public will be required to register in the
online portal, where they will be asked to indicate the preferred location of
their houses and they will be provided with information on the type of home
they qualify for based on their income.
According to the PS, some of the prequalification criteria
to be used to award the houses will be income, family size, choice of preferred
location of home, current assets owned and accumulated deposit.
“The system is designed to ensure every deserving applicant
is allocated a house. However, it is expected that initially there will be
significantly more demand than supply of affordable houses. In the event that
an applicant is not allocated a house in the initial round of allocation, their
names will remain on the waiting list,” Mwaura said.
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